Cal Thomas‘ latest column documents President Obama’s ongoing war against the successful:

This president, more than any other in my lifetime, seems determined to punish and discourage success and the hard work, risk-taking and values by which one must live in order to attain it.

He blasts people who fly on private planes, though he flies on Air Force One, the ultimate private plane, which taxpayers pay for. He doesn’t like yachts, or specifically the people who can afford to buy them. And yet the people who make the private planes and yachts have jobs precisely because others have achieved a level of success that enables them to afford such luxury.

Recall during the administration of President George H.W. Bush when congressional Democrats persuaded Bush to sign a bill increasing the luxury tax on yachts in exchange for a promise — later broken — to reduce spending.

The result was fewer people bought yachts, boat builders were laid off and Congress later repealed the tax hike. Don’t liberal Democrats ever learn economic principles, or does their class warfare trump all else?

People who envy the successful won’t receive any of the money higher taxes might bring in. Congress will spend it long before it “trickles down” to the poor and even if the poor did get some of the largess from the wealthy, when the money runs out they would likely remain poor because their attitude toward “entitlements,” rather than wealth building, would remain unchanged. Isn’t that the story of the failed welfare system? Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it.